Ready to order my first mill, trying to make an educated choice

Appreciate the feedback everyone. If things go right, I could see myself buying one of those enclosed cnc machines down the road but not in the budget right now.

Ceiling height or size is no issue for me. I have an apartment above a shop and have an area with a 14 foot roof.

Is the 932 a better machine than the 30mv?

I just realized the 30mv does not have a tilt head and that's a feature I would like (90* if possible).

Any other machines, manufacturers I should look at? I dont mind stretching to 3k for the initial machine purchase.

Steamingspud, I have 3 of those chip sweeping machines. Temperamental at times but worth the investment so far :)
Last time I checked, the PM 30 head DID tilt 90* left and right. Double check that spec.
 
If it would have fit I would have got a larger mill. That said, the best long range BR stock is Alex Wheelers LRB stock that McMillan makes. I don’t plan to do any flattop inlets but I could if I needed to. I have already stretched the table travel on my 833T to 22.2” and I think I can get get 22.5”. You need 21.75” to do a flattop LRB. All other stocks I will work on are not an issue. Not remotely....... A semi-inlet LRB doesn’t need much table travel at all to finish.
 
I am enjoying the drift with comments, it all helps. Just to be devils advocate, how do any of the grizzly machines stack up? Any one in particular in this price range that I should compare?

I just reread the specs and missed it, thanks for that.

3000 rpm is nice. If I cnc this down the road does that help with backlash tolerances? What's reasonable backlash in a 3k machine?
 
When I did the comparison for what I was looking at, PM almost always had more/better features at every price point.
 
I see it has the tilt head now, no worries.

I keep leaning back to the 30mv for the easy cnc upgrade with the belt drive motor. Tool specs I have read show 2500rpm for titanium so the 3000 rpm off the bat is perfect.

When I cnc it will any dro I put on now be worthless? As in, will I need to remove them? Or can certain ones still be left on for the occasional manual work?
 
People CNC the 932 and 940 quite often, and the are north heavier machines with bigger tables than the 30.
 
Isn't the added cost of going to belt drive and higher rpm in the $750 to $1000 range? Just seams like a hefty up charge in the future I guess.

While I will be doing titanium, we are talking knife handles, 2x5" max pieces. Other uses are putter heads I want to make out of stainless steel also not very big and some aluminum tools for my current job. I know everywhere I read says more weight and bigger is better, just hard to know if I truly need that.

Appreciate all your help INTJ, it's much appreciated
 
I don’t know about the belt drive vs gear drive. CNC is going to be spendy, regardless. Matt at Precision Matthews can get you pointed in the right direction.
 
This thread ran off while I wasn’t looking, wow.

I bought my first Bridgeport for $500 with a few nobs busted. Other than that, tool room quality.

Next mill was smaller, more expensive, and had all sorts of problems. Still functioned and is an excellent candidate for a cnc conversion, but not good enough for my purposes. You saw my latest venture: no regrets, and it’s fairly old and well used.

I saw a few comments saying it’s hard to tell if there’s problems with a machine. Odds are everything is repairable, with mild exceptions. I would gander buying a bench top machine is going to be as much trouble as it’s bigger cousins, depending on what kind of work you want to do. My feeling is if it can’t cut steel it’s a router.

The nice thing about Bridgeport’s is they’re light. I strapped one to a tractor loader with forks and could have taken it anywhere the tractor could go. There’s all sorts of conversion kits out there, it’s a great budget option.

Here’s an auction I lost. There were probably problems with the machines I’m sure, but they were running the day of the auction, and the price is right. The deals are out there, just need lots of friends and a bit of luck.

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